


Bird Song

by JB_Lark



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Alive, Fluff and Angst, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kurta!Shalnark, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, Speculation, The Kurta Clan Massacre (Hunter X Hunter), kurta language, very briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JB_Lark/pseuds/JB_Lark
Summary: "He couldn’t see Shalnark’s mouth move from this angle, but he could see his brow furrow as the blond let out a string of vowel heavy, nonsense words broken up by little staccato trills. As he listened again, he could hear patterns and repeated sounds that seemed too intentional to be completely meaningless. It was a language for sure, but what?"Shalnark unintentionally reveals to Uvogin that he's Kurta by sleep talking of all things.
Relationships: Uvogin | Ubogin/Shalnark
Kudos: 54





	Bird Song

**Author's Note:**

> I know for a fact I'm not the only person who saw Shalnark and immediately thought he looked very similar to the Kurta clan. Also, the clothes he's wearing in [the picture next to overview here](https://hunterxhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Troupe) , come on.  
> So this is basically just that headcanon gone wild. Enjoy. 
> 
> Also, fun fact, booze makes sleep talking worse for most people.

At first, Uvogin thought a bird had somehow found its way into their hotel room and woken him up, which would be odd considering that he hadn’t seen many birds in the city, and he was sure neither he nor Shalnark would leave the window open. It was only when he heard it for a second time that he realized the sound was coming from Shal. The blond still seemed fast asleep, head resting on the divot between his chest and collarbone, breathing steadily. Uvo watched him quizzically for a moment and waited to confirm his suspicions.

He couldn’t see Shalnark’s mouth move from this angle, but he could see his brow furrow as the blond let out a string of vowel heavy, nonsense words broken up by little staccato trills. As he listened again, he could hear patterns and repeated sounds that seemed too intentional to be completely meaningless. It was a language for sure, but what?

He’d heard many languages from nearly every continent during his travels with the troupe, yet this sounded unique to his ears. It definitely didn’t sound like a language any of the other spiders spoke. However, with so many of them being Meteor city kids, only a few of them could speak anything other than Hunter language, himself included. Until now, he’d assumed that included Shalnark. Although the blond was undoubtedly smart enough to learn another language if he pleased, he’d never mentioned any in the four or five years they’d known each other. 

The manipulator wasn’t exactly open with his past, but failing to mention that he had an entirely different mother tongue seemed like a little much, even for him. Shalnark rolled his head across Uvo’s arm and muttered something with a lot of K’s and T’s and melodic vibrato sounds. 

Uvo had never heard him sleeptalk before, and he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. He knew Shal would be deeply bothered by it, whether whatever unknown language he was speaking was a guarded secret or a fact he’d failed to mention for no particular reason. The blond had gotten a little better about his self-evident control issues since they’d become closer, but he still preferred to keep tabs on anything and everything he could, just in case. Meaning this was precisely the kind of thing he couldn’t stand. 

On top of that, failing to mention something like this was probably purposeful. Uvo couldn’t imagine a scenario where it wasn’t. They’d known each other for nearly five years, intimately for about two, and Shalnark had never brought this up even in passing. The blond’s brow pinched, and his nose crinkled as he murmured something low and unintelligible again. While it was clearly a spoken language to his ears now, Uvo could see why the first thing his sleep-addled brain had assumed was that there was a bird in the room. There were lots of trilling sounds and a crooning rhythm to the language. 

He contemplated waking Shalnark or just getting up and getting an early start to the day himself, but he was hesitant with no real idea of what time it was. As usual, they’d rearranged the hotel room to better suit Uvo’s stature, moving the nightstands out of the way so they could push both beds together in one corner and lay sideways across them. It was a comfortable solution for the most part, but he couldn’t peer far enough across the room to read the clock on one either of the cast-off end tables. He decided it was better not to risk it with no way to tell if it was midnight or five in the morning. He shifted Shalnark’s body closer to his side and closed his eyes, falling back asleep to the sound of Shal intermittently muttering his melodic, unknown language into Uvo’s chest.

The following day was uneventful, all things considered. They rose to the feeling of light beaming through the pale hotel curtains as the sun crept up over the city skyline. As they enjoyed some downtime to themselves, the enhancer couldn’t seem to forget what he’d learned the previous night. After Uvo attempted (and subsequently failed) to quell Shalnark’s excessive morning coffee intake, they met up with a few of the other spiders and perused the city for a while. Chrollo met them back at the hotel to discuss his potential plan with the troupe, and then they parted ways. Except for Franklin, Bono, and Shizuku, who would be joining them tomorrow, all of the spiders had taken up temporary residence somewhere in the same hotel, so “parting ways” really just meant drinking stolen beer in Nobunaga’s room. 

Uvogin hated keeping secrets from Shalnark and not just because the manipulator often found him out. The fact that he knew something most likely private about Shal that the blond hadn’t explicitly shared with him was disconcerting. He tried to act as if nothing were off, but deception wasn’t exactly his forte. He cared about pure physical strength, not mind games or intellectual warfare. 

So, he wasn’t surprised when Shalnark flung his arms around the enhancer’s shoulders, tipsy from making the mistake of trying to pace his beers off of Uvo _again._ “What’s up with you?” he whined. Nobu looked over his cards at them, having noticed his friend’s uncharacteristically tense behavior as well. Machi and Phinks, however, seemed utterly uninterested and focused on keeping the game going instead. 

Uvo shifted on the floor and threw back another half can of beer before replying. “What d’ya mean?” he tried playing dumb. 

“Pff, what do I mean?” the blond parroted as he set his chin on the top of Uvo’s head, “You keep making this face… like you’re constipated,” he giggled.

“Ha!” Nobunaga barked out a laugh, “it does kinda look like that.” Uvo leaned forward to grab a card from the deck, dragging Shalnark along with him. “Seriously though, something bothering you?” Nobunaga added as he rearranged the cards in his hand.

“No, just, uh, tired,” he sputtered, “Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” the other enhancer raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.

He felt Shalnark’s breath on his cheek as the blond leaned over his shoulder. “You’re such a bad liar, Uvo,” Shal said in a low voice next to his ear, “I _will_ find out what’s bothering you.” he punctuated his sentence by planting a drunk kiss on Uvo’s cheek and pulling away with a giggle. “See you back in our room!” 

He turned back to Nobu with a sigh as Shalnark floated from the room, looking surprisingly graceful from someone as tipsy as he was. “Do I even want to know?” Nobunaga asked.

“It’s nothing bad,” he tried to explain without divulging too much, “At least I think. I know something that I don’t think I’m supposed to know. Nothing bad really, I just don’t think he’ll be happy that I know.” he noticed Machi and Phinks looking at him over their hands and was worried he said too much. “It’s probably nothing really.”

After they finished that round, Uvo decided to bite the bullet and head back to his room. Nobunaga gave him a sympathetic pat on the back as he left and muttered something about “relationship stuff” being too complicated. When he opened the door, Shalnark turned to look at him from the desk chair in the corner, flushed face illuminated by the flashing lights of some game on his phone. He had one leg propped up on the seat, revealing the bottom edge of his spider tattoo where his boxers slipped down his thigh. 

His green eyes followed the enhancer obviously around the room as he got ready to crash for the night, but he said nothing. When Uvo finally took a seat on the bed, Shalnark held his gaze. “So, are you gonna tell me?” he asked in a tone that was equally playful and chastising.

“OK,” Uvo sighed, “This might sound weird, but… do you speak another language?” 

Shalnark hummed and set his phone down. “Hmm, no, just Hunter. I thought you knew that.” 

“But last night, I heard you speaking another language,” the enhancer insisted, “You were sleep talking.”

The blond cocked his head to the side, “Sleep talking? Are you sure you weren’t just hearing things?”

Uvo’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to figure out how to respond, caught off guard by Shalnark’s outright denial. “What? Of course I’m sure. How could- how could I just imagine that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you were just really sleepy?” Shal guessed as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head with a light groan. “Or maybe you dreamed it?” He padded over to the bed and pushed his palm against Uvo’s chest. “Lay down. I’m tired.” 

The enhancer scooted further onto the mattress, leaning back soundlessly and allowing Shalnark to lay along his side with a content hum. He could feel the blond’s face unusually warm against his chest, still flushed a dappled, alcohol-induced red. For a moment, he considered that maybe Shal’s insistent dismissal could be because he was drunk, but intoxication didn’t explain the way he’d downright refused to _consider_ that Uvo heard him talk in his sleep. That was what he heard, right? The more he thought about it, the more the enhancer doubted himself. Could Shalnark be right? Was it really possible he dreamed it? 

His thoughts continued to race as Shal’s breathing evened out into the slow, steady cadence of sleep. Eventually, he too dozed off only to be awoken a few hours later by the same low trilling noises he’d heard the night before. This time, he forced himself to be alert quickly and listened, eager to confirm that his sleep-addled brain hadn’t somehow hallucinated last night’s incident. 

Sure enough, the blond voiced another string of unintelligible, distinctly non-Hunter words against his shoulder. If anything, he was even louder tonight, alternating between an average speaking volume and low murmurs. It was a language, Uvo was certain. There was a distinct composition to the phrases, and too many repeated sounds to be completely arbitrary. Shal’s head pressed into his arm as the manipulator tensed visibly and let out a short, agitated exclamation. 

Uvo shook his shoulder. “Hey, Shal- fuck!” His attempt to wake the other man was cut off with a curse as the blond kicked him hard just above the knee. He pushed Shalnark away as the ball of his foot connected with Uvo’s leg again. 

As soon as the manipulator’s back hit the mattress, he vaulted upright with a gasp. Uvo’s eyebrows pinched with concern as the blond sat rigid on the bed, panting hard. “Shal?” He questioned as he shifted up to his elbows. The enhancer leaned forward to look past the ruffled blond hair obscuring Shalnark’s face. 

His green eyes were wide and startlingly vacant as he stared absently at the rumpled sheets near the base of the bed. It reminded Uvo of the glazed over look he had when he used Auto-pilot. “Hey…,” he said hesitantly.

Without moving, eyes still and unfocused, Shalnark verbalized a single phrase in that same non-Hunter language. Uvo tried to make sense of it for a moment, something like _“lara uht tar tee”_ before the blond slumped to the side over Uvo’s legs. 

He grabbed his shoulder as Shal folded limply over the enhancer’s knees and shook him firmly. “Shalnark!” he shouted, “What the hell…” After a few more vigorous shakes, the manipulator groaned and rolled over Uvo’s legs, rubbing a hand across his face sleepily. 

“Uvo?” he mumbled, voice still low and coarse with sleep. Shal looked up at the other man’s worried face and asked in a more coherent voice, “Uvo, what’s wrong?” 

Uvo looked back at him slack-jawed. “What- Do you not remember?” he asked. Shal sat up and cocked his head to the side quizzically. “You were just acting super weird.”

The blond flopped back down on the bed with a muffled thump, “You’re not making any sense.” he said, rolling around over onto his side away from Uvogin. 

“Hey, I’m serious,” Uvo prodded the manipulator’s back, pulling another tired sound from him. “You just sat up all spaced out. And you were speaking that language again!” 

Shalnark groaned loudly and batted his hand away, “I already told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“There’s no way you don’t know that you speak another language,” Uvo argued, pulling the blond onto his back, forcing him to make eye contact. 

The blond swatted his hand away harder, palm connecting with his wrist as he tried to dislodge his shoulder from Uvo’s grip. “ _I don’t_ ,” he reiterated with a scowl. 

“Why are you lying about this?” Uvogin asked in a slightly aggravated tone. He knew what he heard, and he wasn’t going to let the manipulator convince him otherwise this time. “Just tell me why.” 

“I’m not lying,”Shalnark replied stubbornly. “It’s late. I’m not talking about this anymore.” Uvogin’s grip on his shoulder loosened, and he shrugged him off with a jerk as he flipped back over to his side. Uvo huffed under his breath and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He felt too awake to lay back down now. From this angle, he could see the red glowing clock face across the room that read 3:52am. 

Standing from the bed, he moved across the room to the too-small desk chair in the corner and turned on the computer. He was going to figure this out, whether Shal wanted him to or not. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the blond hadn’t moved from the bed. Still, it was unlikely that he was already asleep, so Uvogin attempted to go about his research as quietly as possible, pecking the keyboard slowly so the keys wouldn’t clack.

He started by pulling up the translation feature and trying to remember some of the words he’d heard Shal say. Unfortunately, there were many sounds the blond had used that didn’t exist in Hunter language, so he had no idea how to annotate half of it. He tried several variations on the phrase Shalnark had used when he’d bolted upright. Something like _lara uht tar tee?_ Nothing close. _Lah rah uht tare ti?_ No match. _Lar ah urt rati?_ No. Uvo gave up on that line of investigation and typed “languages that sound like birds” into the search bar instead. 

There were a few articles on languages inspired by birds that came up, several of which he could immediately discount because he had heard them before. He almost passed by a link at the bottom of the fourth page of results titled _“10 extinct languages inspired by wildlife”_ but decided to open it on a whim. He skipped the preamble and scrolled down through the list, glancing at the pictures alongside each entry that showed different groups of long-dead tribes in dated garb. This wasn’t going to help him. Whatever language Shalnark was speaking clearly wasn’t extinct. Just as he moved to exit the page, a familiar picture caught his eye. 

It depicted a small group of people, no more than 20 or 30, in colorful tunic-like garments walking through a lush green wooded area. The photo had been taken from a distance, details too blurry to make out. _Kurta_ , the article said. Ah, that’s why it was familiar. He faintly remembered them, the people with the scarlet eyes they’d snuffed out back when the troupe had barely grown past its original members. He skimmed the paragraph next to the picture out of curiosity.

_“Although little was known about the Kurta language prior to the massacre, those who infrequently made contact with the Kurta people often described the language as musical or birdlike. Linguists speculate this was due to the fauna of Lukso province, the geographic location of the late Kurta clan, being disproportionately aviary. Isolate language specialist Zaire Castro is the only linguist alive today to have studied the Kurta language in person. He describes the language as “highly unique” as it developed independently and is part of no preexisting language family. The video below contains an audio recording provided by Dr. Castro.”_

His memory of killing the Kurta clan had faded slightly, overwritten by countless murders and heists from the previous years. He remembered screams, of course, but no “highly unique” language, as the article had put it. He hovered over the play button below the video before glancing back over his shoulder. Shalnark hadn’t moved from his curled up position on the bed. The fluorescent glow from the screen just barely illuminated the edge of his body as Uvo watched his chest rise and fall, trying to gauge the speed of his breathing against his own. It seemed slow and even. Good, Uvo thought. He double-checked that the speakers were set on the lowest possible volume and hit play. 

He craned forward to hear the soft crackling audio through the speakers as the video ran through a short slideshow of pictures showing Kurta clan members, a sparse few taken willingly as portraits, but most taken from a distance like the one in the article. His eyes widened as he recognized the sounds immediately. The language was musical, vowel heavy with lots of short vibrato noises. The video played through as he stared at the screen, reeling as he tried to process what he was hearing. It wasn’t possible, he thought. Could it be that the language Shalnark spoke was from a nearby area? No, the article had mentioned that it wasn’t related to any other languages. 

He replayed the video and listened again. And again. And a fourth time. The more he saw the pictures that depicted any of the Kurta people in detail, the more he started to pick out eerily familiar features. A few apparent differences stood out; different eye shapes, a higher brow ridge, and darker irises, but all three Kurta in the portraits had the same heart-shaped face and thin, slightly upturned nose that mirrored Shalnark’s facial features exactly.

If his memory served, Shal had joined the troupe only a month or two before they took the Kurta’s scarlet eyes, but that hardly made sense. Why would he… Uvo shook his head and replayed the audio one last time, venturing to turn the volume up a notch or two just to be sure. Evidently, trying his luck like that had been a poor choice. He heard the sound of a mattress creaking behind him as Shalnark turned. 

“What... “ he asked, pausing to yawn. He squinted past Uvo to try and see the computer screen. “What is that?” Before Uvo could respond, Shalnark’s face blanched as the video played through behind the enhancer’s back. He abruptly pushed himself up as the audio echoed softly throughout the room. “Uvo, turn it off,” he said in a clipped tone.

“Is this what I heard you speaking?” Uvo questioned, “Kurta?” The voice of whatever fancy linguist reciting some poem or another played continuously through the still dark hotel room. 

The white light from the computer reflection off of Shalnark’s face made him look startlingly pale. “ _Turn it off_ ,” he repeated. 

“Tell me first,” Uvo bargained. The blond looked him in the eyes, expression unreadable in the low light. The enhancer met his gaze brazenly, and they stared each other down for a brief moment. Suddenly, Shal scrambled from the bed and took off down the short hallway, slamming the door behind him as he disappeared into the bathroom. 

Silence enveloped the room as the video ended. The only sound he could hear was the faint hum of the air-con buzzing in the corner of the room as he stared at the thin bar of yellow light shining from under the door. “Shal?” He called down the hall. There was no reply. If he strained his ears, Uvo could just make out the sound of Shalnark cursing something under his breath. “It’s off.” he conceded, trying to prompt a response from the other man—no such luck.

“Come on,” he grumbled as he pushed his hands against the cheaply made desk and stood from the computer chair. “Are you really gonna lock yourself in the bathroom? Really?” Nothing again. He moved down the short hallway in a few strides with a huff, stopping in front of the four-panel door. Like everything else in the hotel, it was made from some kind of tawdry, cheap wood that he was confident he could easily pull from the frame, even if Shalnark had locked it. But he wasn’t feeling quite that confrontational—not yet anyway. 

The handle clacked as he pushed it down a few times, the mechanism jerking to a halt against the tumblers under his hand. Yep, locked—he could’ve guessed as much. “Shal?” he called again as he leaned closer to the door. From here, he could hear rapid, shaky breathing coming from somewhere low to the ground muffled by the wooden panels. “Come on. You’re freaking me out. Just say _something_.” 

“I’m fine,” Shalnark finally replied from behind the door. His voice sounded breathless and slightly hoarse. “Just go back to bed.” 

“Like hell I’d just _go back to bed_ ,” Uvo scoffed, “I just… I’m just a little confused. I don’t get how... “ he trailed off, unable to find the words.

The manipulator laughed from behind the door—a bitter choked up laugh barely reminiscent of his sprightly demeanor. “You don’t get how I speak a language from a clan I helped murder?” 

“No— well, yes,” Uvo prattled as he started at the door for a moment, feeling terribly unprepared. He hadn’t expected his impulsive research session would reveal something quite this complicated and emotionally charged. He’d been hoping to unveil some kind of secret, sure, but nothing like this. In hindsight, it seemed more and more obvious. He thought back to the unusual layered, tunic-style clothing Shalnark used to wear and wondered why he’d never asked if there was any significance to that. “Are you… from there?” he asked cautiously. 

“Sort of,” Shal replied vaguely. 

Uvo waited for him to explain, but the only reply he got was the continued sound of Shal’s unsteady breathing behind the door. “Look, why don’t you come out and we can talk, maybe get a glass of water or lay down or something,” he offered, trying and failing to keep the concerned tone out of his voice. When Shalnark didn’t reply, he added, “If you don’t say anything, I’ll take it as a yes and bust down the door.” 

“Uhg _, fine,”_ the blond groaned as he reached above his head and unlocked the tumblers with a click. “No need to be such a brute.” 

Uvo took a step away from the door as he heard the soft sound of fabric rustling. After a moment, the door swung open, and Shalnark glared up at him halfheartedly from the other side, green eyes highly contrasted against the puffy redness under his lash line, but there were no tears in sight. He shouldered past the enhancer mutely. Their arms brushed together as the manipulator struggled to squeeze past him in the too-narrow hallway. Uvogin scooted back slightly and reflexively placed his hand on the blond’s lower back. To his relief, Shalnark didn’t pull away.

Shal flicked on one of the bedside lamps and sat against the headboard, pulling one leg up to his chest, leaving the other to hang off the side of the bed. He titled his head back against the wall and watched Uvo with a half-lidded gaze as the enhancer sat down in front of him. “So?” the manipulator prompted. His tone was no longer the shaky, breathless voice that Uvo had heard through the door; instead, he sounded resigned and oddly stoic. “Are you gonna ask?” 

“Are you Kurta?” Uvo asked, straight forward and to-the-point. 

“Half,” Shalnark replied, “On my mother’s side.” He propped one arm up on his raised knee while the other fiddled distractedly with the edge of the cotton sheet below his hip. The dim yellow lamplight reflected off the side of his face, and again Uvo found himself comparing the curve of Shal’s jaw to the pictures he’d seen in the slideshow. 

Uvogin blinked hard, clearing the image of ghosts from his head, and asked the other question that was on his mind. “I thought you were from Meteor City?”

“I was born there,” Shal explained, “My mother left the clan with no idea what she was doing and ended up in Meteor City, knocked up. She tried to raise me on her own until I was four or five, but I guess eventually the reality of the situation dawned on her, and she came crawling back to the clan with her tail between her legs.” he drummed his fingers on his knee and chuckled cynically. “They weren’t exactly thrilled.” 

“What d’ya mean?” Uvo scooted across the mattress until his leg brushed the top of Shal’s foot. The manipulator responded by lifting his legs and laying them in Uvo’s lap. 

“Kurta are- weren’t fond of outsiders. For a good reason, but still.” Shal said, “Half-Kurta wasn’t Kurta enough for them.” he laughed shallowly, “They weren’t even subtle about it.”

Uvo just hummed lowly in response, unsure what to say, and absentmindedly set his hand on the blond’s thigh. Shal relaxed into his touch as the enhancer traced small circles on his skin with the pad of his thumb. After a moment, Shal continued, “My mom never got over the whole thing, never felt like the clan accepted her again. She was pretty spiteful about it.” 

“Spiteful how?” The enhancer asked. 

Shalnark scoffed, “Depended on the day; sometimes she’d just ignore me, other times were… worse.” He slid down the headboard until the bottom of his legs hit Uvo’s thighs. “Hardly matters now, though.” He added, “since she’s dead and all.” 

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Uvo mussed as he continued idly rubbing his fingers over Shal’s thigh, thumb grazing the bottom of his spider tattoo. “I take it your eyes don’t, you know,” he confirmed.

“Pfft, no,” the manipulator huffed, “It’s a recessive trait. Only some Kurta had it. Mom wished I did though, desperately. She thought it would prove I was Kurta enough, I think. Either that or she was just delusional. I was never allowed to get mad or upset; that way, the clan would never see that my eyes _didn’t_ turn scarlet. In her mind, that would be enough to convince them that she hadn’t given birth to some brat outsider. Kind of like a Schrodinger’s cat situation; without confirmation, both outcomes theoretically exist at the same time.” Uvo cocked an eyebrow at him, and he waved his hand casually. “It was a bad idea, that’s all.” he summarized. 

The enhancer nodded with a sympathetic hum. The sky was just beginning to turn a washed-out shade of navy as sunlight filtered up from somewhere below the horizon. “When’d you come back to Meteor City?” he asked, thinking back to when Shalnark had joined them. He’d been eighteen or nineteen at the time and familiar enough with the junkyard city to be mistaken as a born-and-raised native. 

“I ran away when I was thirteen and went back to the only other place I knew,” he answered with a small shrug, “And I don’t need to tell you what living in Meteor City as a kid was like.” 

Uvo chuckled lowly, “Yeah, I’m familiar.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments, enjoying the view of the sun peeking up over the city skyline, rays catching around the angular buildings, shining between the gaps. Shalnark dozed lightly, and the tension in his shoulder’s eased as he allowed himself to relax under Uvo’s hand. Unexpectedly, Shal started giggling, prompting an odd look from the enhancer.

“I can’t believe I was sleep talking in Kurta,” he laughed, “Of all the ways to out myself… and hearing that video you found was so strange. I haven’t heard anyone else speak Kurta in so long. His pronunciation was bad too.”

“Do you remember what you were saying?” Uvo thought back to the little he’d been able to catch from Shal’s mostly noncoherent sleep talking. 

The blond shook his head, “No, I wasn’t dreaming or anything, not that I remember at least.” He pushed his heel against Uvo’s leg casually. “It was probably nonsense— _kyiur’tri urtri.”_

“What?” Uvo asked, still stunned to hear another language coming out of Shal’s mouth, on purpose this time too.

“ _Kyiur’tri urtri,”_ he repeated, “It means ‘stupid shit that doesn’t make sense’ more or less.” He laughed and brushed his hand over the back of Uvo’s knuckles, grinning. “There’s another phrase you should hear too— _lak t’tikyi, ut’ti kur’rkso._ ”

Uvo watched him speak with an intent expression and reveled in the strange melodic sounds. “What’s that mean?” he asked when the blond finished speaking, “I feel like you probably just insulted me.” 

Shalnark just smiled, eyes unusually soft and saccharine. “It means ‘I love you,’” he translated, “Well, more or less,” he added with a giggle. 

“ _‘More or less’_?” Uvo echoed incredulously, “What’s the supposed to mean?” Shal laughed and swung his legs to the floor, moving across the room to start a pot of coffee as Uvogin called after him again. Maybe losing secrets wasn’t always all bad. 


End file.
